Riverview pitcher Lukas Duncan was in pain after his team’s game Monday, the result of being hit by a pitch in his left arm in the sixth inning.
“I’m feeling it now,” Duncan said with a chuckle.
Duncan was feeling it all game, actually. Not only did the junior right-hander have perhaps his finest outing of the season, but he also followed up the plunking by scoring the winning run that kept alive the Raiders’ hopes of winning their first WPIAL title.
No. 4 seed Riverview (14-6) advanced to the Class 2A semifinals for the second year in a row with a 4-2 win against No. 5 Laurel (11-7) in a quarterfinal at North Allegheny.
In a matchup of the two stingiest teams in the classification — each came in allowing 3.3 runs per game — Duncan outdueled Laurel’s Luca Santini in the playoffs for the second consecutive season and ended the Spartans’ nine-game winning streak. Riverview beat Laurel, 2-0, in the third-place game a season ago.
“That was probably the best game he’s pitched all year,” Riverview coach Bill Gras said.
Duncan gave up just one earned run and seven hits across seven innings. He struck out six and didn’t walk a batter. Duncan threw 89 pitches, 66 going for strikes.
“This year has definitely been a little bit of a bumpy year,” said Duncan, who improved to 5-1. “This game everything was working. I was feeling it. For sure it was my best game of the year.”
Duncan’s biggest moment on the bump came in the top of the sixth inning. Laurel opened with three consecutive hits, the last coming on Santini’s RBI single that tied the score 2-2. The Spartans then had runners on second and third with no outs when Duncan escaped the jam via a strikeout, flyout to short center and groundout.
“It seemed like he was getting stronger as the game went on, so we had all the confidence in the world that he was going to knock it down,” Gras said.
After Duncan shut the door on Laurel, Riverview began to do the same to the Spartans’ season. With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Duncan was hit by a pitch, Owen Orbich walked and Ashton Saunders singled to load the bases. Santini then was called for a balk, scoring Santini to put Riverview ahead. Following an Owen Metz walk, Riverview stretched its lead to 4-2 when Orbich scored on a fielding error.
“That was a great pitcher, and he mowed us down the first three innings,” Duncan said of Santini. “We learned from our mistakes. It was just a great job by everybody.”
Duncan then set down Laurel in order in the seventh to secure the win.
Santini, a senior right-hander and Clarion recruit, fell to 6-1 after giving up four runs and six hits in seven innings. He walked two and struck out three. Santini had thrown 20 consecutive scoreless innings across his previous three starts, which included a one-hitter with 10 strikeouts against Burgettsown in the first round.
Kolton Carlson had two hits for Laurel, highlighted by an RBI double in the third that put the Spartans on the board first. However, Orbich’s RBI single and Metz’s run-scoring groundout in the fourth gave Riverview a 2-1 advantage.
It was the second come-from-behind win by Riverview in these playoffs. The Raiders scored in the bottom of the eighth to beat Frazier, 5-4, in the first round.
Riverview will meet the Fort Cherry-California winner in Wednesday’s semifinals.